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In this article we will discuss about:- 1. Theories of Play 2. Types of Play 3. Characteristics of Play 4. Educative Value of Play.
Theories of Play:
There are at least five distinct theories of play, viz.:
1. Surplus Energy Theory.
2. Re-creative Theory.
3. Anticipatory Theory.
4. Recapitulation Theory.
5. Cathartic Theory.
A brief discussion of each of the above theories is given below. Illustration 8 presents all the above theories:
1. Surplus Energy Theory:
The exponents of this theory have been the German poet Schiller, and the English philosopher Herbert Spencer. According to them play is the expression of a surplus of energy. A child gets food and nutrition for its growth. An adult spends his energy in his daily work. But the child has no such work.
He accumulates the energy and it remains surplus. Play provides an outlet for the discharge of this surplus energy. Play thus acts as a safety valve to keep the normal balance of the individual’s energy. As the excessive steam is discharged through valve from the boiler, lest the boiler burst out, similarly the excessive energy of a child is discharged through play activities.
Criticism:
This theory has been criticised on the following grounds:
(i) If the purpose is simply to discharge the surplus energy, why does it take a particular form of play? We don’t see a child go about running and exhausting himself for nothing.
(ii) This theory fails to explain why we play even when we are tired, and have apparently no surplus energy. A tired factory worker, coming home after the day’s toil, would like to lie down, or to play table-tennis. Does he not get reset from playing?
(iii) The metaphor of safety valve as used by Spencer does not work. Surplus steam must go out and it in no way makes the engine itself a better engine. But play does help the growth of the child. Play-activity is not a waste, and the energy spent in play is not wasted like the surplus steam of an engine thrown out in the atmosphere. A play is a purposeful activity enabling the child to discover his own powers, physical, mental and moral.
2. Re-Creative Theory:
This theory was first propounded by Lazarus of Berlin. Lazarus says that through play, the child gets recreation and he gains his spent up energy. He recoups his energy spent during his work, and feels refreshed when he plays for some time. Play thus removes fatigue and compensates for the energy spent. It refreshes the tired organism.
Criticism:
(i) This theory does not explain why a child goes to play even when he is not tired. Generally, children have no serious work to perform, and still they play.
(ii) Play does not follow hard work always, even in the case of adults. Some adults will play cards or chess all day long. Hence this theory cannot be accepted as a universal interpretation.
3. Anticipatory Theory:
This theory, also known as PRACTICE THEORY was propounded by Karl Groos in his two works ‘The Play of Animals’ and ‘ The Play of Man’. He observed that play is a sort of preparation for adulthood. The child anticipates his future activities and he prepares himself to meet the problems of life in anticipation.
Karl Groos gave numerous illustrations from animal behaviour, thus proving this propositions. Puppies quarrel in a playful way, because dogs have to fight. Kittens run after moving objects, as they have to catch mice. Animals play, practising an art that will prove useful to them in future.
Confirming this principle, T.P. Nunn says, “Nature invented play not merely as a means of disposing of harmlessly the young animal’s superfluous energy, but as a device for using that energy to prepare him for serious business of life.”
In the same way, explains Karl Groos, the children play different roles (soldiers, kings, teachers, mothers etc.) as a rehearsal for future. They unconsciously prepare for their future vocation and for the serious business of life. Play is thus a serious activity, as it has serious potentialities for future. Thus Stern says, “Play is needed to life as manoeuvre is to warfare.” Play thus is teleological, always anticipating the future needs of the animal. It serves the biological utility of the race.
Karl Groos bases his explanation on some specific observations. Every child is helpless at birth. It has to pass through a period of incubation during which it attains maturity of the adult. This is true for birds, animals and men. Play serves as the nature’s mode of education during the period of incubation, for adaptation to environment. “The higher the position in the scale of intelligence to which the animal ultimately rises, the longer is the period of immaturity accorded by nature, and the more pronounced is the impulse to play”.
It is, therefore, that human child has to pass the longest period of immaturity, during which he gets opportunity to reach the level of adults in adaptation to the environment. J.S. Ross summarises this phenomenon:
The need for education consists in helplessness at birth, the possibility of it arises from the plasticity of instincts, the time given for it is the period of immaturity, the method of it is play.
Criticism:
(i) Although Karl Groos theory is convincing, explaining certain aspects of play, but it remains to be known why adults have a tendency to play even when they have actually entered the serious business of life.
(ii) It remains to be explained why there is little correspondence between the type of play selected by the child and the profession selected in future. A child has multifarious forms of play. Groos, however, argues that the child takes up a number of play-activities, because he is unconsciously ‘trying out’ various possible occupations of adulthood. The activities are well-marked. A boy will play a soldier, and a girl…………. a mother, and not the vice-versa. Groos thus meets this objection to a great extent.
(iii) But when we make a list of numerous play-activities of children, we find most of these are not at all related to the adult-activities. It will be absurd to imagine that ‘hide and seek’ is played to prepare for guerilla warfare in future, or ‘destroying little mud-hut’ is for destroying the enemy’s civilian population. All plays cannot be explained through the anticipatory theory.
4. Recapitulation Theory:
G. Stanley Hall refuted the Anticipatory Theory and put forth a better explanation that play is reminiscent rather than anticipatory. According to him, “the child is not so much rehearsing the serious activities of his own adult life as harking back to and recapitulating those of his remote ancestors.”
Stanley Hall has been a believer in what is known as ‘Culture-epoch theory” which states that there is a parallelism between the racial development and individual development. So he says that the mental development of the child recapitulates some of the history of his ancestors – experimenting with the ordinary tools, trying to adapt to the physical environment, curiously manipulating things and objects, trying to accumulate bits of knowledge etc.
Although the world in general advances, the individual must start from the very beginning and traverse the epochs of the world’s culture. The poet Goethe, the philosopher Hegel, the scientist Herbert Spencer and the Educationist Ziller (disciple of Herbert) lived this theory. The Culture-epoch Theory has stayed so far.
Stanley Hall is not, therefore, far from the truth when he asserts that in play the child recapitulates certain activities of primitive man. What otherwise can be the explanation for such activities as playing with pebbles, throwing stones, shooting arrows, riding a bamboo stick, chasing others, hide and seek, scribbling on stones and trees, building toy-huts and fishing in streams? Observe the folk-dances of aborigines and compare these with the group dances of children and their hilarious shouting in circles, or even the twist-dance in a club.
Criticism:
Hall’s theory explains a good number of play activities, but not all. Some play activities are related with future business of life, rather than with past of the race. Playing with cart is explainable but what about playing with trains, aeroplanes, toy-rockets and ships? Did these exist in the hoary past?
Secondly, it is not explained, why a child gets pleasure out of play? What special attraction does it provide, so that he will afford to miss his meals but not his play? Again, it is not explained why a child makes a selection of his play activities according to his interests. If the play is the recapitulation of the activities of the race, all the activities of the race must be of equal interest to the child.
5. Cathartic Theory:
Perhaps to explain the above phenomena that presents valid criticism of the Recapitulation theory, that some psychologists propound the Cathartic Theory, according to which play provides an outlet for certain pent-up instincts and emotions, which do not get sufficient expression directly. Our present life is so refined that our primitive impulses do not get direct opportunity for expression. So with ingenuity we invent activities which though not uncivilized, are expressions of our primitive instincts.
There is a release of psychic energy, when we play Holi and take the liberty of throwing colours on all and sundry. Our Kabaddi is but an epitome of the ancient combats, providing a vicarious channel for the instinct of pugnacity. So many impulses like anger, self-assertion, gregariousness and laughter find their expression in a sublimated form in play activities.
Play is an expression of emotions. But this theory goes a step further. It states that our pent-up emotions are ‘purged out’ through play. And hence the word catharsis is used, which in Greek means ‘purging out’ or ‘cleaning’.
The word ‘catharsis’ has been taken from the writings of Aristotle, wherein he explains that a tragedy is cathartic in effect, while the spectator projects himself in the life of the hero, experiences the violent emotions and relieves his pent-up feelings. If a tragedy has an unpleasant end, why do we love to see it over and over again? We see it for our own sake, to get emotional relief.
The difference between the surplus energy theory and the cathartic theory is only this much that the former talks of release of physical energy, and the latter describes release of psychic energy. Ross opines that cathartic theory is the most comprehensive formula yet offered.
Criticism:
(i) Is every child emotionally unbalanced, so that he has got pent-up emotions to be released? We don’t have any such evidence.
(ii) Children with no emotional problems, do play and play vigorously.
(iii) Not all the play activities are connected with emotions. Chess and cards, perhaps do not provide any opportunity to relieve emotional tension.
(iv) This theory ignores the physical aspect of play activities.
6. Synthesis of the Theories:
It is shown above that no single theory provides a complete explanation of play. Each theory has some valid points and some limitations. We can, however, correlate these theories and come to some agreed solution.
(i) The surplus energy theory, recreational theory and cathartic theory are inter-related. In play, both the physical and the emotional energy is given expression. We can easily follow surplus physical and mental energy, or catharsis of physical and mental tensions. Recreation is a by-product of release of emotions.
(ii) The anticipatory theory and the recapitulation theory are complementary. Play is both recapitulation of ancestoral activities and anticipation of adult activities. The past experiences are usefully employed to meet the problems of future life. Indian psychologists, while explaining the theory of Sanskaras, direct our attention to the past as well as future of the child. The future depends upon the past.
They combine the forward look of Groos and back-ward look of Hall. If we widen the connotation of play and include in it all make-believes dramas, the Rasa theory of Indian experts corresponds well to the cathartic theory of Aristotle. Play culminates in the development of our basic emotions into Rasa, a state of pure delight. We may weep profusely, but yet take delight in the tragic events, and wish to see these over and over again.
Play, therefore, is anticipatory, recapitulatory, and cathartic all combined. The different theories are complementary rather than contradictory.
Types of Play:
Karl Groos mentions five types of play, viz.:
(i) Experimental,
(ii) Movement,
(iii) constructive,
(iv) fighting, and
(v) intellectual.
As Groos believed in culture- epoch theory, he mentioned the above order of the types of play, in accordance with the types of activities of man at different epochs. The primitive man made experiments about the objects in the environment.
So does the infant. Next, the child runs about, and his play is movement play-like the man of iron-age, trying to construct things, the child manipulates objects. Then he is engaged in group-games, and he organises play of fighting type. Lastly he has the intellectual type of play, preparing for the various situations of life.
Another Classification is:
(i) Motor play,
(ii) Constructive play,
(iii) Destructive play,
(iv) Make-believe,
(v) Initiative, and
(vi) Group play.
1. Motor Play:
From the very beginning the child displays his restlessness. Even an infant throws his limbs. A child of two will sit and stand and move about in sportive manner, thus performing motor activities of various types.
2. Constructive Play:
The instinct of constructiveness is displayed in constructive plays of various kinds such as constructing a hut, joining cubes to construct pyramids, joining parts of machine, and assembling objects. A girl prepares meals, and makes ornament of various flowers. A boy usually likes assembling mechanical toys.
3. Destructive Play:
A child not only assembles objects, but also demolishes these once assembled. He uses scissors to cut paper into pieces, matches to burn waste-paper and straw, a stick to demolish the brick-hut constructed, stones to disturb the calm surface of a pond, an elastic rubber and stone to shoot at birds on a tree, a knife to dissect insects and birds caught etc. At one time he puts things in order and soon he applies a sportive kick to disturb the order.
4. Make Believe:
It is the most interesting and important form of the play. Children assume various roles such as the role of a mother, a father, a teacher, a villager, an old man, a beggar, a fool, a milkman, etc. In such a make- believe, the child finds a channel for the relief of his pent-up energy, which would otherwise be blocked. In his world of fantasy he finds expression to his unfulfilled desires.
Sometimes, the child talks to an imaginary companion who is an epitome of his own new image. He projects his own life in fairy tales, or tales about step-mother torturing the step-son. He gets catharsis of his repressed feelings by the action of the fairy god-mother who loves the child and kills the step-mother.
The survival of a wealth of fairy-tales and children’s stories from generation to generation is because of their cathartic effect. The Panchatantra stories, first composed in India, travelled all the Arab and European countries in the 9th century A.D. Aesop’s Fables are the European edition of Panchatantra. Stories from Kathasaritasagara (a Sanskrit story-book) that deal with children have been popular in Indian homes uptil now.
5. Imitative Play:
In make-believe, there is imagination and fantasy to the extent that the story has no real base. But sometimes the child imitates persons who are performing various roles in the society. A village boy imitates farmer’s ploughing, a city child imitates the movement of a train and gesticulates the same.
A small girl takes a doll and plays a mother. A young boy rests a stick on his shoulder and imitates a soldier in the army. He may march like a soldier and sing a marshal song. A young girl plays the role of a nurse in the hospital.
6. Group Play:
In the early childhood, the child loves to play with other children. It is only the introvert and the maladjusted child who withdraws himself from his appearingly unpleasant social surroundings, and broods over his own fantasies. But normally, the child mixes with other children of his age- group. He obeys the rules of the game and is faithful to the group. Children play ‘hide and seek’, handkerchief game, Kabbadi, Kho-Kho, skipping etc.
Indoor games like ludo, mechano, serpent and ladder are most common. Intelligent teachers have invented group games for teaching each subject. Scouting and Girl-guiding includes numerous group-plays. Group-singing, group, dance, dramatics, Karwali, Bhangra and Giddha (in Punjab), are all examples of group play. Even adults do not lag behind in purging out their emotions through playful activities like Holi, Dewali, folk-dances, folk-songs, and celebration of festivals.
When we discover the enormous variety of playful activities suiting each age we conclude with Ross that “Play is joyful, spontaneously, creative activity, in which man finds his fullest self-expression”.
Characteristics of Play:
1. Innate Tendency:
Play is an innate tendency. It is a creative tendency which is related to a number of instincts and emotions. It is therefore, that the expression of play-activity is spontaneous, a result of an inner urge.
2. Play is Characterised by Freedom:
The child absorbs himself in play according to his own will, and is not impelled by any outward force. He will play whatever he likes, whenever he likes, and for whatever period he likes. That is why Stern defines play as ‘voluntary, self-constrained activity.’
3. Play is Cathartic:
The child expresses his emotions through play, and finds his fullest self-expression. In words of Ross, “Play is cathartic in its action, that is to say, it provides an out-let for certain pent-up instincts and emotions, which, whether in childhood or in adult life, cannot find sufficient direct expression.”
4. Play is for the Sake of Play:
Play is a non-serious activity, and is pursued for its own sake. Play does not produce pleasure, but is pleasure itself. A child plays not for any end in view.
5. Play is Characterised by Child-Fantasy and Make Believe:
A child may absorb himself in imaginative plays, and express his overt behaviour through those. In make-believe, he may find compensation for the inadequacies of his surroundings or of his own self.
6. Play is Interesting and Recreating:
The child engages himself in play with absorbing interest. Even if physically tired, he will feel supreme satisfaction in the performance of play while his psychic energy is discharged. Play is always refreshing.
7. Play is a Mirror of Cultural Activities:
A child anticipates the future adult activities, and recapitulates the activities of the race through his playful activities. This has already been discussed above.
8. Play is Different from Work:
In play, we are away from the serious business of life, rigours of our profession, and the economic and other worries. There is no external motive. There is no boredom. Work, on the other hand, is tiring and taxing. This is further explained below.
Educative Value of Play:
1. Physical Development:
Education is growth and development. Play affords opportunity for the development of body and mind. Group games enhance neuro-muscular activity and provide exercise for all parts of the body. The restless child finds an outlet for his energies.
2. Mental Development:
Play provides opportunity for the expression of psychic energy. It tones up emotions and sublimates the instinct of curiosity, constructiveness, combat and gregariousness. It provides additional information about various objects of the world. Through toys, the child learns new colours, shapes, textures, movements and uses of objects.
Through play-way, he acquires information and skill relating to the school subjects. He develops into a balanced personality. Play is an irreplaceable ingredient for a balanced personality. It trains head, heart and hands.
3. Social Development:
Through group games, the child establishes social relationship with his mates and acquires the social traits of cooperation, tolerance, friendliness, loyalty to the group, adherence to rules, give and take, mutual help and social understanding. He gets opportunity to assert himself and act as a leader. Without play, the child might become introvert, selfish and egoistic. He understands his own capacities and locates himself in the group. He enters a world of reality.
4. Moral Development:
In play the child learns sportsmanship, honesty, fairness, justice, self-reliance, self-restraint and courage. He gets moral training indirectly and unwittingly.
5. Therapeutic Cure:
Play affords therapeutic cure to maladjusted children, on whom restrictions have been imposed and who suffer mental tension. As play is cathartic in action, the pent-up emotions are released through make-believe and fantasy. This has been explained above.
6. Motivation to Learning:
If work cannot motivate a child to learn, play can motivate. Any subject, howsoever dull and dreary, can be of absorbing interest to the child if it is taught in play-way manner. We shall explain it in a movement.
7. An Index to Future Careers:
A child may be interested in a particular type of activity. His constant attention to a particular play may have a predictive value. Napolean in his childhood, played the leadership role. Edison absorbed himself in scientific hobbies. Maharani Laxmi Bai exhibited wonderfully her aptitude for military activities.